Kinogram1920

Silent

American

1m

3.6

Kinograms, brief silent-era newsreels, were the puff-pieces of their day, filming unusual events, distant locales and famous people doing mundane things. Here Babe Ruth observes a potter at work before the Bambino "turns from swatter to potter" and tries his hand at the wheel. This newsreel, while undated, was evidently made in 1920 (since this was the year Ruth took Educational Pictures, the distributor of this Kinogram, to court over a series of films in which he appeared yet he was not compensated). Ruth subsequently set the single-season potting record, which stood until Roger Maris fired his sixty-first pot in 1961, albeit in a longer potting season than Ruth. - Tom Fritsche